﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿Preparing for Comprehensive Exams

The comprehensive examination will be administered and assessed in conjunction with the thesis proposal. (Students admitted prior to 2013 will have a choice of the in-camera comprehensive exam or the new thesis proposal model.)

Students should submit a written draft of the thesis proposal by the start of their second year of the MA program. The thesis proposal will include, as an appendix, written answers to a set of standard theory and methods comprehensive exam questions (see below) that the thesis committee will evaluate using the rubric provided (available here). The exam must demonstrate comprehensiveness in the form of theoretical and methodological sophistication and mastery, even though it will be applied to a single thesis topic.

The graduate committee will monitor the thesis committee’s execution of the comprehensive exam and students’ performance on the exam. In the event that a thesis committee fails a student on the comp, students will then have one week to rewrite their answers. These answers will be assessed and scored by the Graduate Committee.

The thesis proposal defense date can not be scheduled until the proposal is deemed satisfactory by the thesis committee.

Students should ensure that their thesis chair fills out, and members of the committee sign, the Department's Thesis Proposal Defense form (available here), Comprehensive Exam Results form (available here) and the Graduate School's Report on Graduate Student Examination form (available here).

Students may NOT register for thesis hours until the thesis proposal is successfully defended. The thesis proposal MUST be successfully defended by the end of spring of their second year in the program.

Students must be enrolled in the semester in which they plan to defend their thesis proposal and take comps.

Standard comprehensive exam questions:

Methods1. Sociologists have a wide variety of research methods at their disposal. You specify a quantitative (qualitative) design. What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the quantitative and qualitative approaches to answering your thesis project's question?

2. You specify a quantitative (qualitative) design in your proposal. Discuss why your method is best suited to your research question and if or how it can help to establish causal relationships.

Theory1. You frame your thesis project using X theoretical paradigm. How would it have been different using a Y paradigm?

2. Explain the main strength for the theoretical paradigm you use. Explain your theoretical paradigm’s main weakness.

As you prepare for the comprehensive exams, keep in mind that your answers will be evaluated along the following four dimensions:

(1) the completeness and breadth of your answers(2) the accuracy and depth of your answers(3) the effective and appropriate use of evidence in your answers (citations where appropriate), and(4) the logic and organization of your answers.

Preparing for the Comprehensive Exam in Methods and Statistics

Carefully review your notes and other course materials.

Below is a list of the concepts, techniques, and analytic issues you should focus on:

Sociological analysis as "constructions of constructions" ~ Researcher's understanding of people she's studying built on those people's understandings of themselves; Relativist/postmodernist vs. objectivist/positivist